Talk:Critical hit
Because this is an extended example and it probably doesn't belong in the main article, I'll put it here. This is an example of how to milk critical hits for all they're worth, and more. :D Imagine this build: Bard(5)/Red Dragon Disciple(10)/Frenzied Berserker(8)/Weapon Master(7) The character knows Improved Power Attack, which gives +20 damage with a two-handed weapon because of Enhanced Power Attack. She also has a modest strength of 26 because of the Red Dragon Disciple levels (and could get it higher if she chose to put more points into it), which becomes 36 when she uses Greater Frenzy. She has Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack, both of which can score critical with each hit they make and take Improved Power Attack into account. Supreme Cleave from the Frenzied Berserker gives her 2 cleaves per kill. The build also gets 5 attacks per round whenever she isn't using Whirlwind Attack. If she is a weapon master focused in a Falchion and has learned the Improved Critical feat for that weapon, each of those hits has a 40% chance of threatening a critical (13-20 threat range). Then she just has to succeed at another attack roll to confirm, and each confirmed critical hit deals x3 damage. If you imagine the Falchion has NO special properties and none of her equipment gives bonuses to strength or damage (such as in a low-magic persistent world), but she is using her bard Inspire Courage inspiration (might as well, it's free to have active), here's the damage she'll do: 3*2d4(falchion base damage) + 3*13*1.5(two-handed strength bonus during Frenzy) + 3*20(imp. power attack) + 3*1(inspire courage bludgeoning damage) = 6d4 + 57 + 60 + 3 min: 6 + 57 + 60 + 3 = 126 damage max: 24 + 57 + 60 + 3 = 144 damage The chance to make a critical hit like this is given every time she hits an opponent with cleave, whirlwind attack, any of her attacks per round, or an attack of opportunity. As you can see, this makes the build extremely deadly. The strength bonus and power attack alone add 117 damage to each critical hit. An item that boosts strength by 2 would add another 1 to her strength bonus (capping out the temporary strength boost to +12 when stacked with Frenzy), adding another +3 damage. More importantly, if the weapon had a +5 enhancement bonus it would add +15 damage to the critical. A +8 enhancement would add +24 damage. This makes weapon masters extremely valuable in situations where you cannot rely on magical equipment, such as a low-magic world. That said, the extra damage from better equipment in this example is not bad but still unnecessary, since the build already deals 126 - 144 damage regularly with criticals, and 40 - 56 damage whenever a critical hit is not scored. Thus a weapon master is quite valuable in almost any situation where enemies are not immune to critical hits. THAT is the power of critical hits taken to an extreme. :D It should be noted, however, that in a high magic world or a world that allows a character to craft insanely good weapons, such as Mask of the Betrayer (MOTB), a heavy focus in critical hits may pale in comparison. In MOTB, for example, you can put 5d6 bonus elemental damage on a weapon up to 4 times for a total of +20d6 per attack, in addition to the weapon's normal damage. 20 - 120 damage per attack can be pretty nasty when you're dual wielding with Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting and getting 10 attacks per round. So, criticals aren't the only non-spell way to spam mass damage. :D Wazat 20:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Most of these examples ignore the fact that you have to confirm the Critical. Where you need a roll of 20 to hit, you'll need two rolls of 20 to Crit. That's 1 chance in 400, and not really worth worrying about. Also 20 x5 is actually slightly better than 19-20 x3, due to when you're in this situation you'll get x5 damage rather than x3 on your 1 in 400 shot. --Thorsson 22:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Have the threat roll mechanics been changed? In NWN1, a natural 20 on a threat roll did not give a critical hit if it was below the target's AC. Thus, high AC characters were immune to critical hits from low AB characters. -- 23:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC) The mechanics haven't changed. If their AC is so high that only the auto-hit property of a natural 20 will hit them, you cannot critical. However, if a 19 comes just 1 short of hitting them, the 20 can still be a critical. I suspect that freak case is the one he's talking about. Go higher and criticals are entirely moot, and go lower and a higher range will serve you just as well. Frankly, I'm not concerned about the 1/400 case. I prefer the consistent output of a scimitar or falchion over the scythe because that 1/400 case simply isn't going to come up often enough to bank on. And if you're having that much trouble hitting your enemy (having to roll a 20 to hit), getting your criticals in is the least of your concerns. In the Original Campaign playing a weapon master with a falchion, most of the time you'll be able to hit quite often (personal experience), and you'll critical so often you just lay waste to your enemies... unless your build hoses your attack bonus (too much multiclassing?). If you're fighting an enemy that requires a natural 20 to hit despite your high hit bonus, then don't worry about critical hits and just focus on getting any hit in. Though I do agree that if you're consistently fighting enemies that require a 19 or 20 to hit, a wider critical range isn't as effective as a heavy multiplier. But that's really not the norm in the OC, and probably not in most other campaigns either. Constantly having no better than a 1/10 or a 1/20 chance to hit would suck, and I can't see anyone bothering to make a critical hit build in such a campaign anyway. And for the occasional fight where you need to roll 20s, the 1/400 chance isn't worth planning for, IMO. Wazat 03:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC) More late-night thoughts on criticals... A few things I forgot to mention in my previous post... so long ago. :) The other reason I avoid the x4 scythe in favor of a wide critical threshold scimitar or falchion is because I like consistency spread across all my enemies. The scythe criticals very hard, but nearly half as often. It's lousy to only get that rare critical on an enemy that's already near death, or on a weak minion instead of the boss. A wide critical threshold means I can rely on a steady stream of criticals that hit almost all of my enemies. It puts my damage to better use because less of the damage is wasted on weak or near-death enemies. Both a falchion and scythe will deal up to 360% damage in a weapon master's hands, but the falchion spreads it around and wastes less on overkilling. This also makes Great Cleave a deadly feat in a Weapon Master's hands, because each additional attack has a pretty good chance to critical for 3x damage and kill the enemy, continuing the combo. The scythe's x5 multiplier will deal more damage and have a better chance to kill on a critical, but its threshold is a bit less reliable and will contribute less often to a great cleave chain (though its higher damage might help if the enemies are too tough for a x3 to kill outright). Don't get me wrong. The scythe isn't bad (I don't mean to be hate'n), I just prefer more consistent criticals. Scimitar gives a threshold of 13-20 (40%) for 3x damage, while Scythe gives 17-20 (25%) for 5x damage, if I'm getting my math right. I also like the scimitar's ability to swap between holding in both hands for the extra damage bonus, and using a shield when AC is preferable. Can't do that with the scythe. Just my 2 cents and preferences. That said, high AC enemies do come into play here (beyond the extreme edge case of requiring a 20 to hit). Sure the scythe loses damage when its critical is wasted on an enemy with low HP. However, falchions and scimitars lose their wide threshold advantage when enemies have such a high AC that you require a roll of higher than a natural 13 to hit. If you need to roll a natural 17 or higher to hit the target, you might as well be using a scythe because your critical threshold for both weapons is essentially identical, but the scythe's x5 multiplier is not reduced. This can become a very real scenario when you're trying to put Improved Power Attack to work against a Big Bad Boss, which will murder your attack rolls with its -6 penalty. Feats like Combat Expertise can also cause trouble. So I'd say if you're consistently fighting enemies that are very hard to hit (always requiring a natural 14 or higher), pick a scythe. It will deal more total damage and serve you better. Otherwise pick a falchion or scimitar, especially if you're fighting large numbers of enemies and have great cleave. >:D Scimitars and falchions are probably better in the OC because of the happy swarms of enemies that only take a few normal hits (or 1 critical) to bring down. Assuming you have a way to penetrate the critical immunity of most enemies in the MOTB expansion, a scythe will work best there because most enemies have huge health and take a lot of hits to bring down (so great cleave won't chain), and many enemies have exceptionally high AC (damn etherial undead spirits). No idea on the other expansion, haven't played it. So I suppose I'm doing a 180 degree turn on scythes. They actually do sound very appealing in some campaigns now. The things you learn while staying up late. zzzzzzzz...... edit: forgot to sign in before posting; fixing user name Wazat 06:29, June 19, 2010 (UTC) On Dice and Notation: Just playing with an excel spreadsheet and trying to make a damage simulator, and was reading the description in this wiki of crits, and I had a question. AFAIK, XdY means you roll X number of Y-sided dice and add them up. However, according to the way you've used the notation, it would mean rolling one Y-sided dice and multiplying the result by X. Not sure which one the game uses, but could make a reasonably large amount of difference... 20:40, February 1, 2011 (UTC) Rolling Dice vs Multiplying critical hits I suspect you're merging the critical multiplication step with rolling weapon dice. For example: If I have a greatsword that does 2d6 damage and its crit is 19-20/x3, and I roll a crit, I go through these steps: 1) Roll damage. My weapon damage die is 2d6, so I roll a 6-sided die twice and add the results. Rolling a 3 and 5 gives me 8 damage. 2) Add bonus damage that would be included in a crit (we'll add non-qualifying bonus damage later). That means my strength modifier, weapon enhancement bonus, feats, etc. Let's say that when all is said and done, I've dealt 21 damage. 3) Because this is a critical hit, the weapon's x3 crit multiplier comes into effect. That means my 21 damage is multiplied to 63. This means both my weapon damage dice and most of my bonus damage get multiplied in a crit. 4) Some effects are not included in a critical hit, like a +1d6 acid damage enhancement on my weapon. I won't go into what qualifies right now (though I've written a weapon master guide on GameFAQs, and if I remember right I lay it out there -- http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/922154-neverwinter-nights-2/faqs/52788). Also, any bonus damage that happens "on a critical" isn't multiplied, it's just added after the multiply. For example, "on a critical hit, add +1d10 damage." After the critical hit has been handled, add all these remaining bonuses. I'm not sure which example was confusing, and I'm not certain I did it right, but this may help explain any confusion. Sorry! Wazat 17:07, February 2, 2011 (UTC) Guaranteed Hit on Threatened Crit? I have been looking around but I haven't found any information clarifying this: if you threaten a crit (whether that be on a natural 20 or on a lower number for some weapons/builds), does it guarantee a HIT, even if the crit isn't confirmed? Bushwhacker2k (talk) 02:11, March 2, 2018 (UTC) :You can only threaten a crtical if you hit in the first place. -- GFallen (talk) 16:48, April 4, 2018 (UTC)